Many hair shampoo compositions provide acceptable cleaning but provide little or no styling benefits, e.g. body, hold, stiffness. To realize such benefits, separate cleaning and styling products are often used.
Recently, hair shampoo compositions have been developed which can provide cleaning and styling performance from a single product. Many of these products contain styling polymers in a compatible shampoo base. To prepare such products, styling polymers can be dissolved in an organic solvent and then incorporated into the shampoo base. The organic solvent thereafter helps disperse the styling polymer in the shampoo composition, and also helps enhance spreading of the styling polymer onto hair such that the polymer sets and forms a thin film onto the surface of the hair shaft. The enhanced spreading of the styling polymer onto the hair results in improved styling performance from the shampoo composition.
Another method for further improving polymer deposition from a shampoo involves the use of cationic deposition polymers. These cationic deposition polymers improve the deposition efficiency of the styling polymers, which in turn also improves styling performance. The improved deposition from the cationic polymer can also allow for reduction of the amount of styling polymer formulated into the shampoo composition, thus reducing raw material costs. Cationic deposition polymers, however, can cause compatibility problems with other materials in the formulation, especially when used at higher concentrations or at relatively high cationic charge densities. Moreover, excessive amounts of such deposition polymers can result in undesirably slick or oily wet hair feel, and can cause the hair when dry to feel dirty and have less body, less fullness.
It has now been found that these water-insoluble styling polymers in volatile solvents can be rendered more effective, and potentially used at lower concentrations, when used in combination with select cationic spreading agents. It has also been found that the select cationic spreading agents provide this deposition benefit only when used in combination with these cationic deposition polymers. It is believed that the select cationic spreading agents help reduce surfactant micelle size in the shampoo composition, which either forces more of the volatile solvent out of the micelle or prevents the initial solubilization of the volatile solvent into the micelle to make it more readily available to help deposit and spread the styling polymer onto the hair. Moreover, more volatile solvent for the styling polymer is being deposited with the styling polymer, thus resulting in a less viscous droplet which spreads better. This improves the character or mophology of the deposit of the styling polymer onto the hair, while also allowing for minimal concentrations of cationic deposition polymer to be present in the composition.
In view of the foregoing, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a styling shampoo composition with improved styling performance. It is a further object of the present invention to improve the spreading efficiency of styling polymer from a shampoo composition containing a cationic deposition polymer, and further to provide for the improved spreading efficiency using select cationic spreading agents in combination with a water-insoluble styling polymer and a volatile solvent for the styling polymer.